Introducing the OWL

an open source

fully programmable

FX pedal

The OWL is an open source, programmable audio platform made for musicians, hackers and programmers alike. Users can program their own effects, or download ready-made patches from our growing online patch library. It is available both as a guitar fx pedal and a Eurorack synthesizer module.

Buy your OWL online

You can get your OWL through our webshop or from one of our excellent resellers.

OWL

OWL stands for Open Ware Laboratory which refers to the fact that the entire project is open source in both hardware and software. Being open source is an important issue for us in terms of making all of the technology completely accessible to the end user.

Kickstarter campaign

A first production run of the OWL was successfully funded via our Kickstarter campaign. The campaign ran for a month and thanks to our backers we raised over £33,000 in pre-orders. This is the video that we used to promote the pedal on Kickstarter; it’ll tell you a bit more about the project:

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About the Project

The OWL gives users the chance to implement their own bespoke effects and become part of an open-source DSP development community, and for those that don’t develop themselves there is a growing library of ready-made patches available for download.

Using the provided framework and online tools, patches can be easily developed, compiled and loaded to the on-board ARM Cortex M4 chip, allowing the user to change the function of the device without any hardware-specific knowledge.

With a minimum of coding and signal processing knowledge, the OWL can become any kind of effect or synthesis engine that you can imagine, or a chain of unique effects. Alternatively, you could build a patch comprised of several effects that you could switch between using one of the assignable pots on the pedal.

With a strong emphasis on open-source hardware and software, the OWL is also a good entry-point for those wishing to program their own audio algorithms, or for those wanting to learn more about digital signal processing in general.